Positive Relationships

Positive Relationships

The external factor that appears to make the largest contribution to children and young people’s wellbeing and resilience is their experience of positive relationships.

Luthar (2006) reviewed research studies and concluded that resilience for children and young adults is fundamentally built on the foundation of relationships

Peer relationships

Number of friendships is not as important as the quality

Resilient young people tended to develop a small number of friendships with people who stuck with them, sometimes from primary school to middle age (Werner and Smith, 1992).

At least one mutual friendship in childhood is related to lower levels of loneliness, anxiety and being bullied (Ladd et al. 1996)

= body language, listening, assertiveness,

Positive relationships =

positive communication

First Impressions

Most people take only a few seconds to form a first impression and studies show it takes many encounters to change an initial opinion about someone.

A study by Mehrabian (1981) suggests that when we communicate, only 7% of meaning comes from the words we use.

Remaining 93% comes from our tone of voice and body language.

Managing the first impression

Be aware of:

Posture

Tone, volume and pace

Appearance

Facial expressions

Language

Eye contact

Confidence

How can we maintain a positive

relationship?

Yay – now that you’ve

made a great

impression..

Listening

When an individual responds actively and constructively to someone sharing a positive experience, love and friendship increase.

4 styles of responding:Active constructive

authentic, enthusiastic support

Wow! That’s fantastic! What for? What feedback did you get? Did you expect it? How much work did you have to do? Any advice for me?

Passive constructive

understated support

Good work!

Passive destructive

ignoring the event

Guess what – I’m hungry – let’s get something to eat

Active destructive

pointing out negative aspects of the event

Enjoy it while it lasts. I heard the assignments get harder throughout the semester. Say goodbye to your social life if you want to keep getting As

“Guess what? I got an A!!! Woohoo!!!”

Assertive communication

Passive style conveys “I don’t believe you’ll listen to me anyway/it’s wrong to complain”.

Aggressive style conveys “people will take advantage of any sign of weakness”.

Assertive style conveys “people can be trusted”.

Seligman’s five step model of assertive communication

1. Identify and work to understand the situation

2. Describe the situation objectively and accurately

3. Express concerns

4. Ask the other person for his/her perspective and work toward an acceptable change

5. List the benefits that will follow when the change is implemented

Expressing gratitude

Gratitude

an emotion or state resulting from an awareness and appreciation of that which is valuable and meaningful to oneself

feeling grateful enhances physical health (Emmons & McCullough, 2003), promotes positive reframing of negative situations, increases life satisfaction (Lambert, Fincham, Stillman, & Dean, 2009), and enhances comfort in voicing relationship concerns (Lambert & Fincham, 2010)

appreciation was listed as one of the most important factors contributing to a satisfying marriage according to long-term married (25–40 years) couples (Sharlin, 1996).

Dealing with conflict

Paul Wehr (1979)

Is the relationship important to at least one party?

Is the issue important enough to argue over?

Is there time pressure or stress?

No – likely to postpone or decline working through conflict

Yes – more willing to work things out

Conflict styles

Avoidance

Accommodation

Coerce

Compromise

Collaborative problem-solving

Avoidance

Doing whatever they can to avoid an argument through silence or flight.

Frustrates any possibility of a solution.

Accommodation

When in conflict, accommodators tend to use appeasement, processing conflict by creating harmony through self-suppression.

“Whatever you want is fine with me”

Can block productive issue resolution.

Coerce

Force the other party or the conflict process or to use power to silence the opponent.

May be perceived as aggressive and may provoke resistance and inflame conflict.

Usually goes with an accommodator but relationship is unhealthy

Compromise

Based on dialogic communication with reciprocal listening and assertive negotiation of needs and desires.

Best conducted between parties of similar power.

Disadvantage: needs or goals of each party are only partially satisfied – incompletely favourable.

Collaborative problem-solving

Relative time consuming.

Mutually disclose their needs, opinions and desires and are committed to the wellbeing of the opponent.

They communicate until they can identify the issue clearly and come to a common understanding of the problem when they then can consider several solutions to satisfy both parties.